Svenska skolan has finished up for the summer now, and by all accounts, it seems that most of our Swedish friends have somehow wangled enough holiday to spend the whole summer in Sverige!
When we lived in Stockholm we were amazed by the amount of shops which closed up completely for the summer, content to lose any potential tourist business, while their owners spent the summer in their sommarstugor i skärgården, or abroad. Unheard of! Of course there is no direct translation of sommarstängt in English because we don't do it, as far as I know!
The most disappointing implication of the sommarstängt culture was that, when we spent the summer on Lidingö, we found that our local library was sommarstängt the whole summer, which meant we had to take long bus trips to the main library in Lidingö town. No great hardship, I grant you, but irritating nonetheless!
Perhaps it all boils down to jealousy? I rather fancy taking a couple of months off myself. I'd probably have to take the children along though. Hmm. Not much point really, might as well stay put.